Portrayed Fashion: A New Era for French Women (Working Title)

In the Second French Empire (1852–1870) women's skirts were held out by the crinoline. The steel-hooped cage crinoline was patented in Paris in 1856, and at its widest it could reach about six yards around. By the late 1860s crinolines had grown smaller, and by the early 1870s the crinolette and the bustle had largely replaced them. In the 1900s, in the Belle Époque (1871–1914), the "health corset" created an S-curve with a full low chest and curved hips. A new silhouette came in around 1908 from Callot Soeurs, Madeleine Vionnet at Doucet, and Paul Poiret, with narrow skirts and raised waistlines, and a columnar line late in the decade signalled the end of the corset as an indispensable garment. In the 1920s the straight, tubular chemise with a dropped waist became the uniform of the day, and by 1925 skirts ended just below the knee.

In the gallery, compare two or three works and look for how the height of the waist and the length of the hem differ.